Faced with the situation of businesses becoming standstill, large pan-India businesses have knocked the doors of the GST Council to ensure that the e-way bill for intra-state movement of goods be implemented only from an uniform launch date across all states and preferably from June 1 this year.
It has submitted to the GST Council that uniformity of practice by all states as regards the implementation of e-way bill for intra-state movement of goods is the need of the hour.
According to industry sources, large businesses are in a quandary as 15 states have notified that the e-way bill will get implemented for intra-state movement of goods from February 1.
“This is creating a lot of confusion for the industry. States were given the flexibility to decide the launch date but not later than June 1. Now different states have different dates,’’ an industry representative said.
It may be recalled that the GST Council had made e-way Bill mandatory from February 1 for all inter-state movement of goods. For intra-state movement of goods, it would be from a date to be announced separately by each state but not later than June 1, the GST Council had announced.
Now, India Inc is not anguished by the e-way bill becoming mandatory for all inter-state (between States) movement of goods from February 1. It is certainly a pain point for intra-state movement, according to industry sources.
"Inter-state is fine. But if you are going to do for every stock movement within the state, businesses will come to a standstill. This intra-state aspect has to be considered better. More time is needed for intra-state. The portal also should be able to take the load," an industry representative said.
There are also some concerns in the portal like HSN mismatch between GSTN list of valid HSNs vis-a-vis NIC portal excel utility; and non-acceptance of '0' value in case of free samples that needed to be addressed.
M S Mani, Partner, Deloitte India, said: “The likely requirement of e-way bill on intra-state transactions in some states from February 1 would lead to lack of uniformity for large pan-India businesses. It would be ideal if the date of introduction of any measure in GST is the same countrywide to enable businesses to be ready with common processes, software, accounting etc.’’